Vincente Cesar Lucio Velasco Santiago-Vasquez (apocryphy) wrote in retrofucked, @ 2012-01-19 22:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | iris, vincente |
ten piedad de nosotros.
he dripped.
like salt, all mercury beaded, dripped. the condensation of the morning rolled across his skin, dripped from his chin to his chest. he'd spent six miles in the haze of the lowside's supposed morning, and now he stood in the chalkboard living room he shared with his brother with an apple in his hand.
chalk on his fingertips.
a man's life is defined by the worst things he's done, he wrote. and i have many misdeeds.
A crisp cotton rustle came from the hallway. Quickly and quietly -- all too much of both -- a little creature dashed forward with hands wanton and slender and fueled by terror, spreading over sweat and skin.
"I had a nightmare." It was all that was provided. She pressed nearer, implicitly familiar and desperately in need of comfort.
"who the fuck." vincente nearly spat out his apple. looked down. grimaced-- but just slightly. this girl-- always trying to convince him that she was his sister. she might have conned his brother's weak heart into believing, into seeing her as blood because he needed her there, but vincente knew the truth. always knew.
his sister was safe in the country they came from, never tainted by the touch of this place.
he let her stay because he couldn't break his brother's heart. but vincente would not pretend. he would not fall victim to the temptations of the bitch. she fed on the honey of their sins, their blindness, their love-- and he would give her no such thing.
"i don't care and adelio's not here."
back to the wall. more words, more chalk.
cristo, ten piedad. que dios perdone nuestros pecados.
Iris pressed away, a two-step sever that levelled the man with a perplexing stare. Anger, insistence, hurting. She rounded him, interrupting the space between him and the words he felt were more important. She looked at his face, pressed against the wall -- supported herself.
"That's not funny or nice." It was clear -- a bell ringing for what was already dead.
"do we have to do this every fucking week?" vincente said with a great heave of a sigh, taking a snappy bite out of that apple. he shifted his weight. stared down at the girl who seemed so small next to the height of his figure.
"I haven't had a nightmare in months." She blinked, sizing up his stance. An indignant little pout.
"I'm sorry if you've already had a bad day; it isn't as though I normally bother you with things like this -- I know you're busy, but it was really bad."
"i'm not talking about listening to your fucking nightmares," he replied, eyes going back to the words written on the wall. "i'm talking about how every week you come out here like you're going to convince me that you're my sister, when i already know the truth-- and just because adelio needs to think you fucking exist, i know my iris is safe back in the old country. so you can cut it short this week. get out of my face. i have other shit to deal with."
There were several beats of silence. In the moments elapsing, her breaths disintegrated into staccato. That face previously flushed with night's mares and monsters grew pale, drained of everything but horror -- drained of everything but nightmares becoming truth.
"Wh-- what do you mean convince you that I'm your sister?"
"you're not my sister," he repeated without looking.
cordero de dios, que quitas el pecado del mundo:
ten piedad de nosotros.
"she didn't come here. she's back home. safe. she probably got married to that boy that kept coming around. probably had kids by now. but she wasn't damned to come rot in this place. and you--" suddenly, his anger enveloped his form and he pushed her against the wall, pressed her back into the chalk dust with the weight and pummel of his words. "-- every time you come around and you say that your name is hers, you curse her. en el nombre del padre y del hijo y del espiritu santo, you curse her memory with your demon form."
that snarl, those hellish words. he backed away, slightly, expecting full well that the girl would back down now.
The realizations came in waves, slowly and with the weight of his breath. Fittings -- the potential for any alterations -- but things hadn't seemed right with her upon waking.
So what, then...?
In a fit of anger, in a tear-stained flush she turned, dragging hands and nails over the words he'd been writing -- mangling them, blurring them into obscurity. She turned back to him, all resentment and pain.
"Llame al EspĂritu Santo todo lo que quieras - es como muertos en este lugar que usted y yo!" The words were hot with anger. She sidestepped to avoid further inflictions of memory lapse, dragging her hand over many other admissions as she went.
"encontrar a alguien que se alimentan de," the man seethed after her, throwing the apple down at her footprints. "sucking the life from my brother's lungs, perra de mierda."
all the anger, all the venomous words.
he could hardly bear the thought of this stranger under his roof, so close to adelio. he was convinced that she would kill them both.
"And what has been sucked from you?" She kicked the apple, with great effort and great display that she was the middle of the two brothers in all proficiencies. It spun widly away, its center of gravity destroyed by what was missing.
"I'll leave you to your business." With all the effort she could afford, her voice wavered just a little bit less. She walked away -- graceless, the wrecked posture of an actress who couldn't act through this tragedy before her.
he said nothing of her exit and returned to his ruined confessional.
there was no such saint as Mercy here.